Sunak and Braverman’s trans jokes ‘unacceptable and dangerous’ says Parliament equalities chief Caroline Nokes

[IwantToRetire]

Caroline Nokes, Tory chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, warns against ‘seeking to make a group of people the butt of jokes’

Parliament’s women and equalities chair Caroline Nokes has given a dressing down to Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman over jokes about trans people.

Earlier this month, Suella Braverman joked in the Commons chamber that “we can’t rule out” Keir Starmer “running to be Labour’s first female prime minister” – while a leaked recording surfaced of Rishi Sunak last month telling Tory MPs in the 1922 Committee that the Liberal Democrats were “busy trying to convince everybody that women clearly have penises”.

Ms Nokes, a Tory MP who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, told news podcast What the Trans?: “I think it’s hugely othering, it’s very dangerous, and it’s seeking to make a group of people the butt of jokes. I just think it’s unacceptable.”
Addressing Ms Braverman’s remark, Ms Nokes said: “To be quite frank, it was a ridiculous comment. I thought it was very telling that there was silence in the House, there was tumbleweed rolling down the aisles… let’s not use the House of Commons chamber to poke fun at marginalised groups or some sort of school debating society, we should be setting ourselves higher standards.”

Of Mr Sunak’s remarks, she said: “I just think we need to be better than that, we really do.”

The MP – who attended Cabinet under Theresa May but has remained on the backbenches under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak – acknowledged that her argument “may be failing within my own party at the moment” but stressed some Tory MPs are supportive of transgender people.

She also expressed “grave concerns” about the state of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the nation’s equality watchdog, after a Channel 4 News investigation unearthed claims of a toxic environment and a rapid staff turnover.
“I get reports from EHRC staff anonymously that it is not a happy ship,” Ms Nokes revealed.

She expressed concerns that there was a “very particular direction of travel when it comes to gender critical views” at the regulator since the organisation’s chair Baroness Falkner was appointed in 2020 by then-equalities minister Liz Truss.
Ms Nokes said: “I look at the appointment now through the prism of, this was an appointment done by Liz Truss, who had a very particular agenda when it came to equalities.”

Part of quite a long interview in iNews https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-suella-braverman-trans-jokes-parliament-equalities-chief-2467613

I would have thought as a Chair she shouldn't voice an opinion. It is her role to hear all sides of an issue, and try and find a common ground or agreed way forward. Seems nobody has standards anymore. Flag waving seems to take precedence.

If iNews is behind a paywall for you go to https://archive.ph and copy in the iNews web link as it has been archived there.

Eh?! Doesn’t sound like Sunak was joking - that is the Lib Dem’s actual position (and Labour too obv). The fact that it sounds like a joke is very telling isn’t it?!

The Lib Dems do think women have penises!
And for all I know, Starmer may have a womenly gender ID.

Noakes needs to check out what the other side is actually thinking.

Yup.

Nokes is not as clever or well-briefed as she likes to think she is, clearly.

Gosh, Tory bigots. Imagine!

The gendamentalists being so averse to humour is pretty funny in itself.

I really struggle to understand what is going on with Ms Nokes.

I am not surprised by her the Tories aren't being kind, but what is unacceptable is to say that she has been getting secret updated from staff at the EHRC about how awful it is.

Again, as there is an official investigation going on, what is she thinking in making comments like that.

She seems to have no sense of occupying a role that means she should refrain from commenting.

It seems to be yet another case of someone desparate to be seen as a trans ally.

Doesn't she wonder how she can fulfil her role and Womens and Equalities Committee Chair if all she can do is go on about trans rights.

I think she's right. It's nothing to do with women's rights, it's unreconstructed prejudice against anyone who doesn't conform. Just laughing at the existence of trans people. A huge number of people that enjoy this kind of joke will also be homophobic. Feminists getting into bed with the tories need to understand what they are getting into.

Except that Ed Davey does believe that women can have a penis - he's said it in interviews, it's why he thinks so many women are bigots and not welcome in the LIb Dems. So how on earth are Sunak's comments "unreconstructed prejudice"?

Yeah they sound like stupid unpleasant comments. It's possible for jokes to be factually true and still unpleasant and unnecessary. With Nokes on that one.

@BishyBarnyBee this exactly

I don’t understand your comments PermanentTemporary, Bunny & Bishy. In the article, Sunak doesn’t appear to be making a joke, but is accurately representing LibDem’s position that they think some women have penises. Why is this wrong?

As in, why is it wrong for Sunak to say this?

Nokes has what appears to be a performative agenda at tomorrow's Women and Equalities Committee.

Talking to them about advice they gave Kemi for example. They aren't going to be able to elaborate on the advice. They aren't going to be drawn on what a Minister may or may not do next.

They aren't going to be able to discuss an ongoing but paused investigation either. And no way should she be commenting on the current mood at the EHRC, with a clear inference that people are unhappy, not given her role. She's hardly a toothless backbencher, making random swipes at PMQs.

Perhaps this has dawned on her and she's getting in shots at other colleagues to deflect from her own performance in advance. Not sure at all what was wrong with what Sunak said. And it's notable that she doesn't expand on it, and tell us what she thinks exactly was wrong.

Yes, it's not a joke, he's accurately reflecting Lib Dem policy... unless....

If politicians are so foolish as to claim that women can have a penis when everyone in the world knows that this is untrue, then pointing this out is an act of compassion for the poor deluded politician.

Many won't be homophobic. Whereas everyone who believes that saying that sometimes biological sex matters (and labels others as GC and a TERF) is homophobic. So which side of that would you rather be on?

I don’t label anyone. Live and let live. Some of the narratives I read about trans sound uncomfortably like the same words said by anti gay attitudes a few years ago. Swap the key words. It’s there.

@BishyBarnyBee @BBunnyfuller1 Please could you remind me when it became illegal to take the piss out of people who say monumentally stupid things?

@JanesLittleGirl well, that surely depends on what ‘stupid’ means, and I think you’ll find that word has been used to shut down differences across years and nations.

Unbelievably, some of us don't think it's a question of picking teams and villifying everything the other side do and say, but of trying to find a way through a complex situation with no easy answers.

A jibe about Keir Starmer perhaps being a woman is no different to calling someone gay as an insult. It plays into homophobe hands and many of the people who are happy to laugh at transpeople will also laugh at butch women and effeminate men.

If Keir Starmer started calling himself a woman he would lose my vote immediately. It's absurd enough that he thinks some women have penises. But this would be a departure from reality so vast that I'd be soiling my ballot.

You are absolutely vilifying everything the other side do when you call people homophobic. Its ironic that you can't see that, when you say this has 'nothing to do with women's rights' and suggest that people who find this amusing must be homophobic, you are the bigot and the homophobe. I am not homophobic. I am not trying to erase homosexuality and so I will defend a lesbian's right to exclude a man from their potential dating pool. The 'there are no easy answers' trope is just another way of shutting down concerns. No, there never are any easy answers when people are unable to accept themselves as they are whether that be because they believe themselves to be something that they're not in terms of sex or some other reason. That does not mean that women should give up their protected spaces. It's a completely irrelevant argument. The simple fact is that men are never women and women's spaces are protected for a reason. What you're not seeing is that Sunak was mocking Kier and no-one else. Kier Starmer is a misogynist and therefore deserves to be mocked. No-one here is laughing at trans people. They are laughing at the self-serving bigots running the former le parties who are happy to erode women's safety and freedom for their own self promotion. Supporting them is nothing to be proud of.

This, again. So amazing that those previously vilified are so quick to attack others.

It's quite funny. We are allowed to have a sense of humour and make jokes. If trans people uniquely cannot deal with that they should go off and get more therapy.